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Having relative poor signals on the local 70cm / 2m channels using this Diamond collinear 70/2 combi antenna at a height of 25m. I needed to investigate what could be wrong.Measuring the cable only 3W is left for the antenna of the 10W 435MHz output from a IC451EThe cable is 30m type H100 Z50 10mm outside diameter it is semi air-spaced but has an impossible 4mm² solid CU inner conductor not much air left. I preferred the H43 Z75 cable having lower loss and mechanical better ratio in conductor size but it is no longer selling i think. This H433W should be enough for a comfortable noise free FM signal. But only 27km away at PA0A the signal is weak too weak something must be wrong? I made a simple reference dipole of 2x17cm CU wire.With this dipole the signals where totally worse. So the Diamond does work?I got curious to look inside. Maybe moisture penetration degraded the antenna.This antenna is rainwater close in its normal vertical mounting position. But take care if your mast can b…

The mother of all contests the ARRLDX
since the 70's i was active in the ARRL tests with club call PA0GN
In those days paper logging. CW 2 weekends 48hour and phone 2 x 48hour.
Dupe checking had to be done from the paper logs in the weekends after with a group of om's
someone did read the log and the others had to check the calls in the list..
it was easy to make mistakes in the logging bad handwriting wrong time wrong band etc.

Thursday to Friday another poor propagation night hope that propagation will pick up soon.

The Beverages could stay another week the land is too wet

No more goodies fttb.
also LA2XPA seems to have lost propagation no more exotic West USA spots.
propagation shifted to south below dream DX spot 2017-03-03 05:18 WH2XXP 0.475662 -26 0 DM33 50 DJ0ABR JN68nt 9427 32
here WD2XSH/17 19 decodes no better then -18 no exceptions from FN square

Wednesday - Friday night:
29 decodes of WD2XSH/17 last night strongest -7
no other TA
Propagation faded here by Aurora
Aurora enhanced propagation like on 160 and 80m can happen
is not seen on 630m yet

U3S continued
The output of the U3S at 12 10 and 6 could not be improved with an extra parallel BS170
the 50MHz dropped to 60mW
Adjusting the bias gained some more output
The BS170 is now allmost class a 84mA bias 100mA with max RF
T…